Watch Review: Timex Titanium Expedition North
When we think ‘Timex’ we tend to think of $30 mall kiosk watches you get for your school-age kids. Many watch enthusiasts recognize that the Weekender line is great value for money in the lowest price brackets. However in the $100 — $400 tier of more serious “value for dollar” watches, Timex’s results have been more mixed. You have offerings like the Waterbury and Q series, which offer nice designs but not great specs or finishing. The same could be said of their special editions. The conventional wisdom is that it never makes sense to spend over $100 on a Timex.
And then along came Expedition North Titanium Automatic to completely destroy that consensus. This bad boy is an absolute blast of a watch that gives far more expensive options from Seiko and Hamilton a run for their money. The titanium case is the first key point. It features a handsome matte bead-blasted finish that perfectly aligns with the field watch aesthetic. It also features a decent automatic movement that clocked in at around -8 seconds per day accuracy. It employs a shock resistant design and a display caseback to let you enjoy it. Happily, both the dial crystal and caseback use sapphire.
With a case height of 12.5 mm it is certainly not the thinnest watch out there, but the profile works. This is a 41 mm diameter tool watch. It’s not meant to be babied or confused with a dress watch. Thanks to its screw down crown and 200 m of water resistance, you could easily use this as a dive watch if you wanted.
For me personally though the thing that gets me is that dial. I love the texture. It looks fantastic up close. I am a big fan of having full numerals instead of indices. I loved it on the IWC Mark XX and it is again executed quite splendidly here thanks to some subtle coloring and generous lume. The three o’clock lume dot by the date complication is a nice touch showing that Timex really thought about the details on this watch. It is a rugged, functional tool watch, but also just a really beautiful piece.
Let’s aim for concision and just itemize ten reasons to appreciate this piece:
- Amazing textured dial
- Super legible numerals, great lume
- Sapphire crystal
- Sapphire display caseback
- Titanium case with bead-blasted matte finish
- Fairly accurate shock-resistant automatic movement
- Hacking seconds
- 200 meters water resistance
- Signed crown, signed titanium buckle, quick release strap
- Timeless field watch aesthetic
Of course it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. There are three distinct drawbacks to this otherwise excellent watch. The first is right on the dial: the handset. We get a pair of boring blocky sticks. Some tasteful syringe or cathedral hands would have really elevated this piece.
Secondly, the strap. It’s “genuine” leather, which, if you know a bit about leather grading, means it is the lowest quality leather that can actually be called leather. It works as a strap but feels and looks pretty cheap. I don’t mind it for my beater use case, but if you plan to daily this watch I’d recommend investing in a quality strap.
Thirdly, the rotor noise is unusually loud. Not like, constantly driving you nuts loud, but definitely loud enough that if you shake your wrist in a quiet room you will notice it. The not-so-great ~42 hours of power reserve mean that you’re going to have to move your wrist a bit with this on anyway.
In spite of the negatives mentioned above the titanium variant of the Expedition North line ought to be a sleeper hit. It demonstrates quite conclusively that Timex is not just a bottom of the barrel budget watch brand. They absolutely can hang with the Seikos, Citizens, and Orients of the world right around that $300 price point. I love this little dude like you wouldn’t believe.
